Article – CDC on EHR errors: Enough’s enough

In this article, the CDC has issued a warning on the issues of user interface design when presenting patient information in EHRs.

As the examples in the article illustrate, having information in digital form is not enough. It needs to be presented in an effective way to ensure comprehension. After the current wave of information digitization and consolidation (moving information from disparate, departmental clinical information systems into a single large enterprise system), the next wave of effort needs to be on privacy/security, accessibility/reliability, and usability, or the incredibly high potential gains will not be realized.

Users need to trust the system, it needs to be there when they need it (wherever that is), and they have to want to use it.